WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...
Inside the Smithsonian's meteorite lab Climate change isn't liberal or conservative: It's reality Man confused mohawked woman with bird, shoots her Seed Libraries Crop Up Algorithms for smart sand that sculpts itself Buy a ticket to HOPE in NYC and 10% goes to EFF Incredible art made with open-source weather data Vonnegut's letter to a book-burner The Mixtape Lost at Antikythera How DRM weakens publishers' negotiating leverage with retailers Sincerest Form of Parody: the lost ecosystem of MAD-inspired gross-out comics R2D2 skirt Taste-test: 22-year-old Batman cereal Inside the Smithsonian's meteorite lab
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Apr 02, 2012 12:58 pm This is a very cool, behind-the-scenes peek at how researchers at the Smithsonian deal with the problem of studying meteorites without contaminating said meteorites. This is a big issue. We study meteorites to learn things about what has happened and is happening outside our own planetary system. If, in the process of that, we end ...
Read in browser Climate change isn't liberal or conservative: It's reality
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Apr 02, 2012 12:51 pm Paul Douglas is a Minneapolis/St.Paul meteorologist. Meteorologists don't study the same things as climate scientists—remember, weather and climate are different things—but Douglas is a meteorologist who has taken the time to look at research published by climate scientists and listen to their expertise. Combined with the patterns he's seen in weather, that information has led ...
Read in browser Man confused mohawked woman with bird, shoots her
By David Pescovitz on Apr 02, 2012 12:47 pm A gentleman in Grand Junction, Colorado was put on probation after shooting a woman in the head. Apparently, he thought the woman was a red bird but really she just had a red mohawk. The woman, who did survive, "may have been passed out from intoxication prior to being shot" and that a bag of ...
Read in browser Seed Libraries Crop Up
By LibraryLab on Apr 02, 2012 12:38 pm Just as one seed can produce many seeds, one idea can change many lives. Free public libraries were revolutionary in their time because they provided access to books and knowledge that had not previously been available to a large segment of the population. A free seed lending library can also provide people with a chance ...
Read in browser Algorithms for smart sand that sculpts itself
By David Pescovitz on Apr 02, 2012 12:25 pm Above is an example a "smart pebble," outfitted with a microprocessor and magnets, that MIT researchers are using to prototype algorithms for "smart sand" that could form into any shape. Sure, it's early days. But still! Smart sand! From MIT: At the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in May — the world's premier ...
Read in browser Buy a ticket to HOPE in NYC and 10% goes to EFF
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 02, 2012 11:55 am Emmanuel Goldstein writes, "The coordinators of this year's Hackers On Planet Earth conference in New York have joined forces with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and have designated April as the month where 10 percent of all ticket sales will be donated to EFF. The net would be a much more dangerous place without the EFF ...
Read in browser Incredible art made with open-source weather data
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Apr 02, 2012 11:36 am This is what the wind over the United States looked like on March 27th, 5:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time. It's beautiful. And it's even better if you go to the project page, where you can watch real-time wind currents move around the map. The National Digital Forecast Database is a weather forecasting system that provides ...
Read in browser Vonnegut's letter to a book-burner
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 02, 2012 10:42 am In 1973, Kurt Vonnegut learned that Charles McCarthy, head of the school board that governed Drake High School in North Dakota, had burned 32 copies of Slaughterhouse-Five in the school furnace, offended by the book's "obscene language." Vonnegut wrote a private letter to McCarthy, a heartfelt, low-key, scathing recrimination that could be repurposed for any ...
Read in browser The Mixtape Lost at Antikythera
By Rob Beschizza on Apr 02, 2012 10:25 am 
The student of history who devotes his attention only to the most notable events and personae of the Hellenic tradition would imperfectly comprehend its true character. Though its Di Majores offers the pre-eminent claim upon the follower of the divine, it is always from mortal's psychedelic machine music that surprises emerge.
Read in browser How DRM weakens publishers' negotiating leverage with retailers
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 02, 2012 10:23 am My latest Publishers Weekly column is "A Whip to Beat Us With," which describes how publishers who allow retailers to add DRM to their products hand those retailers a commercial advantage to exercise over the publishers themselves. Jim C. Hines's e-books are marketed both through a big publisher and solo. The books that were re-priced ...
Read in browser Sincerest Form of Parody: the lost ecosystem of MAD-inspired gross-out comics
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 02, 2012 10:00 am Today marks the publication of Fantagraphics' magnificent archaeological comicsology, The Sincerest Form of Parody: The Best 1950s MAD Inspired Satirical Comics. This volume collects the rare, nearly unheard-of parody comics that sprang up in the early 1950s to jump on the bandwagon that MAD magazine set in motion. Many of the same artists who made ...
Read in browser R2D2 skirt
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 01, 2012 06:14 pm Etsy seller GoChaseRabbits make this fabulous custom R2D2 skirt. She's sold it, but she's taking pre-orders for more. For Sale is a UNIQUE R2D2 Star Wars Inspired skirt! This is one of my original designs, it is all hand cut with machine patchwork stitching. This is surely a conversation piece. I tried to make it ...
Read in browser Taste-test: 22-year-old Batman cereal
By Cory Doctorow on Apr 01, 2012 03:00 pm FoodJunk, whose blog details the flavors and sensations to be had from junk food, bought a 22-year-old unopened package of Batman cereal on eBay and tried it. The results weren't good. Bad news for anyone with a superhero-themed apocalypse stockpile, and something to remember for the next time you're telling a story about someone poking ...
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